[Transcriber's note: The source book had variant page headers. These
have been changed to Sidenotes, positioned at the paragraph that
seemed most pertinent.]
[Frontispiece: RUMSEY'S GUILT REVEALED TO THE KING--_Page_ 272]
Traitor or Patriot?
A Tale of the Rye-House Plot
BY
MARY C. ROWSELL
Author of "Thorndyke Manor" "The Pedlar and his Dog"
"Fisherman Grim" &c.
_ILLUSTRATED BY C. O. MURRAY
AND C. J. STANILAND_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW DUBLIN BOMBAY
PREFACE.
This story is for the most part a romantic rendering of a very
obscure episode in the story of the reign of Charles the Second. It
does not pretend to more historical accuracy than belongs to other
romances which are spun from a thread of fact on a spool of fiction,
but it may be mentioned that the scenes and the actors are mostly
real, and it should be remembered that the story of the Rye-house
Plot (1683) as told in authentic records is strangely vague. That
there was a plot--that the King's house at Newmarket was burnt, or at
least that part of it containing the royal apartments was on
fire--and that Charles escaped, are the certain points of the story.
The details are left very much to imagination, and as fancy is free,
"one story is good till another is told."
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. "Queen Ruth"
II. How a Mysterious Coal Barge came to the "King's Arms"
III. Maudlin Sweetapple
IV. The Old Rye House
V. How Master Rumbold told Lawrence Lee what
the very Air might not hear
VI. Something in the Water
VII. Mistress Sheppard does not care for her Guests
VIII. Moonrakers
IX. In the Malt-yard
X. The Meeting on the Foot-bridge
XI. "He Died for his King"
XII. Mother Goose's Tales
XIII. The Sliding Panel
XIV. In the Warder's Room
XV. The Plot Thickens
XVI. A Little Difference of Opinion
XVII. "Dead Men tell no Tales"
XVIII. "God Save the King!"
XIX. "Stars and Garters"
XX. "A Friend in Need,"
XXI. "A Friend Indeed"
XXII. Our Sovereign Lord the King
XXIII. "Did you not Know?" she said
XXIV. Lawrence Sleeps on it
XXV. Supper at the "Silver Leopard"
XXVI. "Fire! Fire!"
XXVII. "In the Night all Cats are Gray"
XXVIII. Father and Daughter
XXIX. A Welcome Home
XXX. A Traveller from Newmarket
XXXI. Rumsey meets his Match
XXXII. "So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should
know"
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Rumsey's Guilt revealed to the King ... _Frontispiece_
Ruth and Lawrence succour Sheriff Goodenough
Lawrence Lee encounters Mr. Flippet
Lawrence Lee saves the King
TRAITOR OR PATRIOT?
A TALE OF THE RYE-HOUSE PLOT.
CHAPTER I.
"QUEEN RUTH."
May-day! None of your raw, drizzling, windy, nineteenth-century
May-days, when folks, chilled to their marrow-bones, draw their old
cloaks and coats about them and beg for a cozy blaze in place of the
smart new "ornament for the fire-stove." No; a right-down,
unmistakable, fine old English first of May, with a fine old English
sun, gradually assuming roseate hues, and setting the heavens in a
glow as he slopes westward behind the trees of Epping Forest, casting
long shadows athwart the smooth-shaven grass-plot which carpets the
forecourt of a fine old many-gabled Hertfordshire farm-house; while
his dying brilliancy gilds the broken summits of the ruined
gate-house overshadowing it, and illumines the fresh tints of the
cowslips, and earliest summer flower-garlands, festooned with many a
gay ribbon-knot about a May-pole towering to the cloudless sky.
Around this a group of young folks are merrily footing it to the tune
of "Phillida flouts me," which the fifers and fiddlers, mounted on a
table beneath the big spreading yew-tree, are braying out with a will.
[Sidenote: Spring-tide.]
And the Queen of the May? Well, there she is; that--. But no; what
differs more than taste on these points? and you must decide for
yourself concerning the value of her claims on beauty. To you it may
seem that many of those bright eyes, and laughing lips, and all the
rest of it, rival the charms of Queen Ruth, Young Mistress Ruth
Rumbold, the only child of Master Richard Rumbold of the Rye House,
whose embattled gate-tower roof just shows yonder through the trees,
with its gilded vane gleaming in the setting sun-rays. But then you
do not know Ruth as all these good people have known her for fifteen
years turned last Martlemas-tide, when she was left a motherless
three months old babe to the care of Nurse Maudlin--Maudlin
Sweetapple. Therefore it is hardly possible for you to conceive how
entirely she has won the affection, even of creatures commonly
reported to be destitute of it; such as Gammer Grip, the miserly old
hunks who lives in the tumble-down hut over against the crossways,
and of Growler and Grab, the Nether Hall watch-dogs and terrors of
the neighbourhood.
[Sidenote: The maltster's daughter.]
So possibly it has come to pass, that love has clothed little
Mistress Ruth about with a beauty strangers might not be able to see.
For you, the gray eyes so frankly meeting yours from beneath their
long dark lashes and the well-defined brows might be too grave and
thoughtful, though indeed, quite to decide, you should wait till she
speaks. The tip of that little nose, to please your classical
notions, ought not possibly to assert its right of way as it does, in
just the slightest of upward directions. Neither is her mouth of the
"button-hole" or "two-cherries-on-one-stalk" order; though it is a
handsome, sweet-tempered mouth enough, with its resolute yet mobile
curves when the red lips part to speak or to smile. Then again, her
hair is neither sunny nor raven-black, as it behoves heroines' hair
to be; but then she did not look to be a heroine, this Hertfordshire
maltster's daughter. Nor was it of the tawny red the fine ladies of
those Merry Monarch days delighted to dye their locks; but just of an
ordinary middling shade of brown, with the faint ripple of a natural
curl on her white forehead, and something of the sort which defied
the silken snood, and saucily insisted on straying at pleasure about
the nape of her slender neck. As to her hands, they were as well
moulded and serviceable a little pair as you might wish to see; and
if they were a trifle browner than modish maidens might have
considered altogether the thing, the sun, and the churn, and the
delicious home-made bread, and such like things, were possibly
responsible; but an ocean of milk of roses itself, could not have
been so soft and sweet as their touch, if you needed help from them
in any pain or trouble befalling you.
Doubtless as pretty a pair of feet as hers were to be found in the
shire; but if Cinderella's own were smaller--IF they were--they could
not have been prettier; and let her wear what she might, those
partial people who knew her, declared that Ruth Rumbold's clothes
always became her. Be that as it may, very certain it is that that
kirtle of flowered chintz looped above the pink-and-white striped
tiffany petticoat marvellously becomes her trim figure, and matches
bravely with the red and snow white hawthorn wreath crowning her
shapely head; and never, declare her loving lieges, was fairer Queen
of May than this Queen Ruth.
[Sidenote: The master of Nether Hall.]
Her Majesty's partner in the dance now being so spiritedly carried
on, is the lord of those May-day revels, Lawrence Lee, the young
master of the Nether Hall farm. The natural order of the festivities
would assign him the distinction; but in this particular instance it
is no empty one. Left to his choosing, he would in every probability
have invited Ruth, queen or no queen, to dance with him, for the two
were fast friends; and such they had been since first Madam Lee,
Lawrence's mother, had gone with her own five-year-old boy toddling
beside her, across the fields to the Rye House; and there, taking the
motherless baby Ruth in her kind arms, she had tenderly kissed the
winsome face; and the little boy saw with wondering awe how some
tears were left shining, bright as dewdrops on daisy flowers, upon
the placid sleeping eyelids as she laid the little creature down
again in its cradle. "We must love her dearly, for she has no
mother," murmured Madam Lee; and so faithfully had Lawrence backed up
her proposition from that day forward, that his affection had gone on
growing with his own inches; and if he loved Ruth when he paddled, a
barefooted urchin, along with the ducks about the reedy shallows of
the moat, inveigling her to the like unlawful courses, she was every
whit as dear to him now that he stood a good five feet eleven in his
buff boots.
As handsome a young fellow as you were likely to meet on a long
summer day's journey, with his lithe figure, dark eyes, and crisp
locks, was this young master, now in fact and in right, of the Nether
Hall farm and its broad acres, since he became turned of twenty-one
last Shrovetide, as for quite two years before he had been to all
intents and purposes; for his farming genius was inborn, and he was
never happier than when he was busy among his barns and his hayfields.
[Sidenote: A secret.]
Possibly Lawrence Lee carries his liking for hard work so far, that
holiday-making bores him. At all events, let him succeed as he may
in cheating his guests generally into admiration of his high spirits,
his efforts at gaiety are so exaggerated and fitful that Ruth is not
for an instant to be imposed upon by them. And when at last the
dance is done, and the syllabub is being handed round, and the two
stroll away into the hornbeam maze, which brings you, if you are
acquainted with its mysteries, to the field-path leading straight to
the river's brink, the good folks would stare to see--or can it be
the leafy shadows which so heavily darken those two young faces?
Nay; the shadows are from within, as if black care were busy at their
hearts. Yet with a difference; for while Lawrence's brow is brooding
and abstracted, Ruth's eyes are full of wistful anxiety; and with her
little hand tight in his clasp the two silently thread the maze,
until suddenly the fiddles and fifes strike up afresh; and this time
their tune is "Begone Dull Care."
"Let us go back," said Lawrence, breaking from his moody silence into
a laugh of forced merriment, "and enjoy ourselves while we can.
Come, Ruth, one more dance," and he seized her by both hands.
"No," she answered. "I must go, Lawrence; and at once. It will be
almost dark now before I am home, and father will be angry."
[Sidenote: On the River Lea.]
Lee's brow fell again; but he only said, "As you will;" and they
walked on till they reached the river's brink, where a small boat,
newly painted, and decked with ribbon-tied cowslip and daisy posies,
lay moored to a stout stake.
Lawrence's customary mode of transplanting Ruth from dry land to his
little craft, was to catch her light figure in his stalwart arms and
seat her in the stern "before she knew where she was," as she would
say with terrific frowns. To-night, however, he soberly--did she
fancy it was even a trifle absently?--assisted her in with his right
hand. That this new order of things had not escaped her notice, some
look in her face made him uncomfortably conscious.
"Is your majesty well placed?" he asked, affecting to laugh as he
took the sculls and paddled out into mid-stream.
"We should be so," she replied with mock gravity, drawing up the
rudder cords. "Thanks to your lordship's ceremony in seating us."
"That," returned he, breaking into a smile of unfeigned amusement at
her lofty air, "is no more than what is due to your majesty's supreme
rank from your majesty's most loyal subject."
"We find that good hearing," said Queen Ruth, "since we are convinced
that my Lord Lawrence Lee always feels in his heart what his speech
professes."
[Sidenote: A troubled heart.]
Her words were jestingly uttered; but the young man bit his lip hard;
and his cheek grew white, as if some sharp sudden pain had stung him.
"Lawrence!" cried Ruth, starting and bending forward, "what is the
matter? You are ill."
"Not I, dear heart," replied he, sweeping one hand hurriedly across
his face.
"You are so pale," she insisted.
"Tired," laconically said he, vigorously plying his oars. "With that
last measure, you know," he added in explanatory tones, as she opened
her eyes rather contemptuously.
"For my part," she said, "I am not so delicate, and could have danced
on till daylight again. Though in that case, 'tis clear, I should
have had to be beholden to another partner," she added, with saucy
composure.
"Not while I had a leg to stand on," briskly returned he. "But the
fact is--well, I must be getting old, eh Ruth?"
"A whole quarter of a century. In four years more," interrupted she,
with a ringing laugh.
"And that is ever so far on towards the half of a lifetime," he
murmured thoughtfully to himself, "even supposing one is let live it
through in peace. Well," he added, in a louder key, "'tis certain
age brings a peck of cares, Ruth."
"Tell me some of yours," said she coaxingly, "so that I may share the
burden of them. Shall I not?" she pleaded on in gentle earnest tones.
"Heaven forbid!" fervently ejaculated the young man. "Heaven forbid
you should ever do that, child! There must come never a cloud to
darken little Ruth's days."
[Sidenote: Cross-purposes.]
"And yet I think mine can scarce be all sunshine if yours are--mind!
mind! There you go! Running right into the mudbank!"
"Then must my steerswoman be to blame," laughed he. "Pull to the
right, Ruth."
"I hate secrets," she pouted, doing as he directed.
"There are some things," rejoined the superior creature, "girls can't
understand."
"Then, to be sure, I think they cannot be good for boys--we crave
your lordship's pardon--MEN we should have said;" and Ruth hemmed a
little correcting cough--"to meddle with; And-- There you are again.
All in the osier tangle now!"
"Confound it! and whose fault but yours?" he cried petulantly.
"Didn't I bid you keep to the right?"
"And how am I to see what I'm doing, pray, if you will bob your head
about in that fashion?" retorted she, irately knitting her brows.
"Lawrence, dear, what's your mighty secret?" she added, in
honey-sweet tones.
"Who said I had one?" flashed he. "How stupid and disagreeable you
are to-night, Ruth! What is it you want?"
"Only for you to be nice again. Dear, nice, happy, old Lawrence."
[Sidenote: Stillness but not peace.]
"Nice! happy! psha! bah! hang it! A fellow's nowhere with you girls
if he isn't always up in the seventh heaven!" grunted Lawrence, and
then he rowed on in sulky silence between the low-lying meadow banks,
where the quiet oxen stood plunged knee-deep in the fresh young
buttercup-studded grass, lazily sniffing in the fragrant evening air,
all translucent with the greenish golden tints of mingled young
moon-beams, and the last rays of the setting sun. Save the low
chirp, chirp, twee of the birds settling to their nests among the
pollard willows, and the ripple of the water about the boat's prow,
not a sound broke the stillness, till a somewhat sharp bend of the
river brought them in sight of a wooden bridge, overshadowed to its
right by a thicket of tall beeches and brushwood; while leftwards, a
narrow road threaded on across it to a second bridge, spanning
another stream that gleamed gray and still as glass between straight
high-lying banks scarcely twenty yards beyond; and so winding on,
over a waste of level common land, till it was lost in distance.
Dimly discernible through the copse to the right of the first bridge
were the walls of a quaintly-timbered, many-gabled, two-storied
house, whose latticed casements and trellised porch gleamed in the
night's soft radiance; whilst a huge sign, bearing the royal arms,
swung in its carved oaken framework, which projected from between the
windows of the upper storey, right across the narrow road above the
lofty wall of red brick which ran facing the inn for some distance.
[Sidenote: Master Rumbold on the watch]
Close down on a tiny landing-stage, by the nearer bridge's foot, a
man stood watching the approach of the boat with his one available
eye. The other, blurred and blemished apparently past all service,
aggravated the naturally stern and sinister expression of features
passable and even handsome, to which his puritanical pot-hat,
leathern-belted, black, close-fitting doublet and plain white linen
collar lent no relief. Neither did the knitting of his sombre brows
relax, but rather gathered more heavily, as Lee made fast the boat
and Ruth sprang lightly to the bank.